Numerous enterprises ship large quantities of identical parcels to their customers. These enterprises include, but are not limited to, order fulfillment operations, online pharmacies, direct mailers, advertising groups and catalog sales. Common items included in a parcel may include product samples, order fulfillment products and reward program bonus items. These parcels need to have name and address labels applied to the parcels in a separate labeling process. The labeling process may be done on a separate labeling machine or done manually. For parcels, a separate shipping label, as defined by the delivery service, such as the United States Postal Service (USPS®), must be added to the parcel. This labeling process may be implemented on a separate labeling machine or done manually and may require an optical character recognition (“OCR”) address reader to obtain the name and address date needed for the shipping label. Parcels processed using these separate labels steps will not qualify for discount postage and are shipped at a full postage rate. Alternatively, the parcels may be presorted on a Small Parcel and Bundle Sorter (“SPBS”). Presorting parcels on a SPBS requires using an OCR/barcode reader/video coding system to read names and addresses from the parcels, correcting and certifying the address data, obtaining the delivery destination ZIP code and sorting the parcels based on the ZIP code associated with the addresses. The first pass of the parcels through the sorter requires a sorter with a large number of sort bins, at least 30 bins and frequently upwards of one hundred, so that as many of the parcels can be sorted to the finest extent of sort based on a historical sort scheme. Second and third sorting passes are needed to sort all the remaining parcels to the finest extent of sort as defined in USPS® presort standards. The second and third pass sort schemes are based on the address on the parcels that were not sorted to the finest extent of sort on the first pass. The use of two or more sorting passes results in the parcels being sorted in accordance with USPS® presort rules, thereby qualifying the mailing for discount postage. The SPBS is a large machine requiring a large space for operation. If fewer sort bins are used, additional sorting passes must be added. The whole process from blank parcel to labeled and sorted to the finest extent of sort to qualify for discount postage is a labor intensive and time consuming process.
Hence, a need exists for a small sorting system that can process unaddressed parcels, apply an addressed delivery service shipping label, and sort the parcels in accordance with pre-sort processing rules to qualify for postage discounts. The labeling and sorting process occurs on a single pass of the parcel through a sorter. Application of shipping labels and packing slip labels are applied as part of the single pass sorting.